Conscientious objection to provision of legal abortion care

Despite advances in scientific evidence, technologies, and human rights rationale for providing safe abortion, a broad range of cultural, regulatory, and health system barriers that deter access to abortion continues to exist in many countries. When conscientious objection to provision of abortion becomes one of these barriers, it can create risks to women’s health and the enjoyment of their human rights. To eliminate this barrier, states should implement regulations for healthcare providers on how to invoke conscientious objection without jeopardizing women’s access to safe, legal abortion services, especially with regard to timely referral for care and in emergency cases when referral is not possible. In addition, states should take all necessary measures to ensure that all women and adolescents have the means to prevent unintended pregnancies and to obtain safe abortion

Advancing sexual health through human rights : the role of the law

In order to ensure accountability for the rights and health of their populations, states have an obligation to bring their laws into line with international, regional and national human rights standards. It is vital that people in the health sector understand how health, human rights and law interact, and their relevance to both individual and public health. The paper presents examples of legal changes and new standards related to non-discrimination, criminalization and access to sexual health and human rights information and services, and points governments towards shaping a legal environment that will meet their human rights obligations and improve sexual health

Human rights accountability for maternal death and failure to provide safe, legal abortion: the significance of two ground-breaking CEDAW decisions.

In 2011, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued two landmark decisions. In Alyne da Silva Pimentel v. Brazil, the first maternal death case decided by an international human rights body, it confirms that States have a human rights obligation to guarantee that all women, irrespective of their income or racial background, have access to timely, non-discriminatory, and appropriate maternal health services. In L.C. v. Peru, concerning a 13-year-old rape victim who was denied a therapeutic abortion and had an operation on her spine delayed that left her seriously disabled as a result, it established that the State should guarantee access to abortion when a woman's physical or mental health is in danger, decriminalise abortion when pregnancy results from rape or sexual abuse, review its restrictive interpretation of therapeutic abortion and establish a mechanism to ensure that reproductive rights are understood and observed in all health care facilities. Both cases affirm that accessible and good quality health services are vital to women's human rights and expand States' obligations in relation to these. They also affirm that States must ensure national accountability for sexual and reproductive health rights, and provide remedies and redress in the event of violations. And they reaffirm the importance of international human rights bodies as sources of accountability for sexual and reproductive rights violations, especially where national accountability is absent or ineffective

Vaccines to promote and protect sexual health: policy challenges and opportunities.

Vaccines aim to improve the well-being of everyone and are seen as a public health success story in the prevention and control of communicable infections. However, decisions to use vaccinations are not without controversy, and the introduction of vaccines targeting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is particularly contentious. In this paper we investigate the underlying policy challenges and opportunities for rolling out STI vaccines. Looking in detail at the experience of delivering HPV vaccine, we explore the lessons that can be learnt, including policy and human rights dimensions, for future STI vaccine introduction and scale up. Policies arise from the interaction of ideas, interests and institutions. In the case of HPV vaccine, ideas have been particularly contested, although interests and institutions have impacted on policy too. A review of human rights in relation to STI vaccine policies highlights the specific needs and rights of adolescents, and the paper details concepts of consent and evolving capacity which can be used to ensure that adolescents have full access to health interventions. Policy options for vaccines include mandatory approaches - and these have been utilized in some settings for HPV vaccines. The paper argues, and outlines the rationale, against adopting mandatory STI vaccine policy approaches. The paper concludes by identifying policy opportunities for introducing new vaccines targeting STIs